Checkmate
It's been a strange time lately, mostly good but nothing resolved and the underlying panic bubbling to the surface from time to time. It's been a good eight or nine years since I had my mid-life crisis and I realized today that it never really ended. It is more like I have just developed methods for keeping it in check and/or ignoring it, but have yet to do anything to resolve any of the issues that set me off in the first place. I am guessing this is why I started to have more and more anxiety attacks last year.
I guess the most central issue is just my 'career,' which has been proven unfulfilling and yet very difficult to move away from. Trying to figure out an alternate vocation to pursue has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, as everything either seems unrealistic or a lateral move at best. I've never been good enough at any of the things I'm passionate about - music, photography, writing, recording - to make any kind of career out of them. Whether that is a lack of innate talent or a lack of motivation, I'm not sure. Most of the time when I really analyze it, it feels like a mix of both, but either way it leaves me stuck in a job I don't particularly care about any more with no real stability and no real long-term prospects for it improving.
The other great source of anxiety and frustration is my love life, or lack thereof. Key to this issue is no doubt the fact that I am still - after six-plus years - hung up on the same person and whatever slim chance I had for something to develop there has long since gone away. Loving someone forever sounds romantic but if that person has other plans for their life and doesn't share the feeling, it becomes a burden. Sometimes, I am okay with it and it just reinforces my long-held feeling that I was meant to be alone anyway, but there are other times when it just closes in and begins to feel like I'm just dooming myself needlessly to loneliness.
Beyond all of that is the feeling that I have really accomplished most of what I've wanted to in life and can't really get that excited about anything the way I used to. I feel like if I live to be 50, I will be fortunate, for obvious reasons, and if I live to be sixty, I will have more than exhausted anything I would want to do. Even now it is hard to keep myself motivated and come up with things to do and I'm not even 40 yet. There are a few things I definitely do want to complete, though, such as the project I'm doing with Ted and the Ogburz album that Nels and I are working on. After ten years, I feel like my work for Outburn is complete and I don't know that I have anything more to say in that regard. Although I would like to do another Triple Point album (and got off to a good start with three songs), I don't feel like Tom or Vic are that interested in pursuing it so I'm not as concerned about that. I feel like I've done my bit for now and if they want to step up and contribute some material, maybe that will inspire me again but until then, I would rather focus on Ogburz. And photography? Just not feeling inspired and haven't for a long time, not sure why.
This chapter is well-titled for the point I'm at in my life. Not sure where to go from here really. Start a new game? Perhaps, but isn't it just the same game with slight variations? Maybe that is better than nothing though. I have been feeling like I'm at the back of my head observing everything remotely and I want to move back to the front, to be engaged again and feel things the way I used to. Just haven't worked out how to do that yet. Hope it doesn't take another ten years or more until I do.
I guess the most central issue is just my 'career,' which has been proven unfulfilling and yet very difficult to move away from. Trying to figure out an alternate vocation to pursue has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life, as everything either seems unrealistic or a lateral move at best. I've never been good enough at any of the things I'm passionate about - music, photography, writing, recording - to make any kind of career out of them. Whether that is a lack of innate talent or a lack of motivation, I'm not sure. Most of the time when I really analyze it, it feels like a mix of both, but either way it leaves me stuck in a job I don't particularly care about any more with no real stability and no real long-term prospects for it improving.
The other great source of anxiety and frustration is my love life, or lack thereof. Key to this issue is no doubt the fact that I am still - after six-plus years - hung up on the same person and whatever slim chance I had for something to develop there has long since gone away. Loving someone forever sounds romantic but if that person has other plans for their life and doesn't share the feeling, it becomes a burden. Sometimes, I am okay with it and it just reinforces my long-held feeling that I was meant to be alone anyway, but there are other times when it just closes in and begins to feel like I'm just dooming myself needlessly to loneliness.
Beyond all of that is the feeling that I have really accomplished most of what I've wanted to in life and can't really get that excited about anything the way I used to. I feel like if I live to be 50, I will be fortunate, for obvious reasons, and if I live to be sixty, I will have more than exhausted anything I would want to do. Even now it is hard to keep myself motivated and come up with things to do and I'm not even 40 yet. There are a few things I definitely do want to complete, though, such as the project I'm doing with Ted and the Ogburz album that Nels and I are working on. After ten years, I feel like my work for Outburn is complete and I don't know that I have anything more to say in that regard. Although I would like to do another Triple Point album (and got off to a good start with three songs), I don't feel like Tom or Vic are that interested in pursuing it so I'm not as concerned about that. I feel like I've done my bit for now and if they want to step up and contribute some material, maybe that will inspire me again but until then, I would rather focus on Ogburz. And photography? Just not feeling inspired and haven't for a long time, not sure why.
This chapter is well-titled for the point I'm at in my life. Not sure where to go from here really. Start a new game? Perhaps, but isn't it just the same game with slight variations? Maybe that is better than nothing though. I have been feeling like I'm at the back of my head observing everything remotely and I want to move back to the front, to be engaged again and feel things the way I used to. Just haven't worked out how to do that yet. Hope it doesn't take another ten years or more until I do.